Jennie Geisler: Try slow-cooker recipes for fall

Wednesday

Sep 13, 2017 at 10:27 AMSep 13, 2017 at 10:27 AM

Jennie Geisler More Content Now

I grew up near Mentor, Ohio, where there was a Joseph Horne’s department store that had — in addition to Christmas Eve-worthy clothing — a restaurant on the second floor called Josephine’s, and once a year or so, our family would go shopping, buy suffocating Christmas outfits and have lunch or dinner there.

I always got the French dip. I always got it because I was a kid, and I’d been absolutely clueless about what to get off such a fancy menu, and the first time I got it I liked it well enough not to risk trying anything else.

I hadn’t had a French dip sandwich in ages, until I recently met a friend for lunch at Odis 12. I wasn’t in the mood for wings, so my friend allowed as how he thought the French dip might bring tears to my eyes, and I’m telling you it nearly did.

So this cookbook shows up in the mail. A slow-cooker cookbook. We get them all the time and readers go nuts for them in the drawings. Slow-cooker cookbooks are hands down the most popular genre. This one I didn’t just want to throw into the drawing pile, though. It’s by Phyllis Good, who has done more for the popularity of slow cookers than any other person on the planet. Rival and Hamilton Beach owe her millions, but she doesn’t need the money. She created the “Fix It and Forget It” series and could probably buy her own island. I wonder how many slow cookers she owns.

Anyway, flipping through it, that French dip sandwich fresh in my memory, ding-ding-ding, a recipe for just that. Post-It note bookmark. Flipping, flipping, flipping, Gingerbread in a loaf pan? In a slow cooker? Wait — how? And, for that matter, why? Well, fall’s coming. Gingerbread sounded good. Let’s see how this works.

5 things I learned:1. You can go with a few cuts of beef for the French dip — even deli roast beef dipped in beef broth. It’s an inherently delicious dish that can take quite a bit of abuse. But if you want the tears-to-your-eyes result, start with a marbled cut such as the chuck roast (the same cut that would yield a few rib eyes) and cook it low and slow. A 3-pounder will fit in a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker. Odis 12 smokes theirs, so that adds a whole other level of flavor I can’t replicate on my kitchen counter.

But this meat was delicious, I’ll tell you that.

2. I liked the open-faced presentation on this French dip, even if it creates some logistical challenges. You could spoon on some juice if you wanted, or take your chances with a pour from whatever vessel you’re using to serve the dipping broth. It’s just that if you start getting into hoagie rolls, or even split baguettes, you start getting more bread than meat and cheese in each bite. I don’t know. I just want the bread to bring the meat to my mouth, not fill me up or dampen the complexities of the slow-cooked flavor.

3. Alright, enough with my carnivorous urges and onto gingerbread in the slow cooker. Well, I got my 9-by-5-inch loaf pan to rest on the rims of my 6-quart slow cooker. I got the batter in, forgot to prop open the top, so the moisture dripped on the baking bread for about two hours until I realized the error of my ways. I vented it, the moisture evaporated, the bread baked to my satisfaction. My son, a gingerbread freak, actually argued with me over who would get the last piece. (We split it.)

4. But I kind of got stuck on WHY you would put a loaf of quick bread in a slow cooker, where it would take three hours to bake, instead of an oven, where it would take one hour. I puzzled on this as I went about the rest of my cooking that day. I figured there’s the Thanksgiving situation: The oven is full of other stuff; or sometime when the oven just isn’t working; or you don’t have an oven, but you have electricity, such as in a rustic cabin situation. But all those situations added together add up to — at most — perhaps three times, like, ever.

5. I settled on what I think was the real reason for the entire dessert chapter in the book, and — I’ll admit — the reason I sometimes choose recipes myself: A phenomenon I call “sport cooking.” I define sport cooking loosely as “just to see if I could,” or its closely related “just to see what would happen.”

I would be willing to bet author Phyllis Good — or more likely her minions — spent countless hours sport cooking the entire dessert chapter. I don’t mean to denigrate the dessert chapter. I’m just saying sure, you can eat very well by cooking with nothing more than a slow cooker or four at your disposal, assuming, of course you’re organized enough to start four to six hours before you’re hungry.

But the gingerbread also cooks in a 350-degree oven in an hour, just in case you’re wondering.

Check that the 9-by-5-inch loaf pan fits into your slow cooker crock. It should either sit on the floor of the crock or be suspended from its top edge while still allowing the lid of the crock to fit. If 9-by-5-inch loaf pan doesn’t fit, try an 8-by-4-inch pan. It will be fuller, but should still work.Grease the inside of the loaf pan with butter or nonstick cooking spray.

Cover the bottom of the loaf pan with apple slices.Pour the batter over the apples.

Cover the crock, but vent the lid with a wooden spoon handle or a chopstick. This allows steam to escape and will help to keep the moisture that gathers on the inside of the lid from dripping onto the bread.

Cook on high for 2½ to 3½ hours, or until a tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

When the gingerbread is completely cooked in the center, remove the loaf pan from the crock, using oven mitts. Set the pan on a cooking rack.

Serve warm or at room temperature. When serving, be sure to spoon up apples from the bottom of the loaf pan with each slice. Or invert the loaf onto a platter or cutting board and slice.— “Stock the Crock”